How ScanLAB Projects creates 3D laser ghosts of Earth's hidden spaces

Matthew Shaw has wandered beneath ancient Rome and watched polar bears playing on Arctic ice floes, all because of his knowledge of one specific technology -- which the rest of us will soon get our hands on.

That technology is laser scanning, or Lidar, which his company ScanLABS uses to create 3D digital images of Arctic ice floes, Science Museum exhibits, and even the coat Lord Nelson was shot in.

ScanLAB mounts its hardware on a tripod -- or, more recently, on a drone for overhead views -- bouncing the laser off everything it can reach, measuring a million points of data a second. That allows ScanLAB to build a model of any space using millions of little dots that are precise within a millimetre, Shaw said.

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"We understand this technology really well, and because of this knowledge of this technology, get invited to some special places," he told the audience at WIRED NexGen. Most recently, Shaw explored the aqueducts and sewers hidden beneath ancient Rome for a BBC special [right], but he started his company after having a conversation in the pub with a friend about to travel to a Greenpeace icebreaker boat in the Arctic to study ice floes, who was complaining he was tasked with a new piece of technology.

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. "Five days later, I was on a ship, a helicopter, two planes to get to the Arctic." For his work, Shaw was lowered off the ship onto the floating pieces of ice, where he digitised it from all angles, even using underwater autonomous vehicles to get the underside of what he was standing on -- and in the meantime losing a reference sphere to a young polar bear who turned it into a chew toy. "One of the most amazing things about these things is I didn’t go to amazing places alone, but with people who have been studying them for years," he added.

His advice for the audience at WIRED NexGen? Don’t be afraid to learn like that guy in the pub. "Become an expert in technology, because you never know where it will take you," he said.

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3D-scanning explorer

Vincent Whiteman WIRED

The rest of us can follow Shaw’s steps, as ScanLAB’s digital models offer a virtual walk through of those special places that he and his team have visited personally. The scan of Lord Nelson’s jacket is "a very precious object" so you’re not allowed to touch it. "But what you can do via our digital model is spin it around, digitally touch it," Shaw said.

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That's true of the Arctic scans, too. Shaw’s team made molds from the scans, filling them with water to freeze to build an accurate model of Arctic ice for an art exhibit. "As people walked into that room, their breath and them being in the room, made the ice melt quicker. It’s a perfect analogy for what’s happening in the Arctic," he said.

And soon we’ll be able to make our own scans. Shaw predicts this laser technology will within five years be on your smartphone, thanks to Google’s Project Tango which is already trialling 3D scanning on handheld devices. "You’ll have this on your phone soon, so do something fun with it, and get your selfie-from-the-side face ready," he said.

And it's happening quicker than you think; the last thing Shaw showed on screen was a 3D model of the main stage at WIRED NexGen, scanned in eight minutes just an hour before, and now captured forever in digital dust.

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